Further Reinforcement That People are Stupid

As many of you may know, I am a moderator on the Tokidoki Forum. Tokidoki is a lifestyle brand designed by an Italian guy, Simone Legno. His colorful and inventive designs are inspired by Japanese anime traditions. The line got its big break with a LeSportSac handbag collaboration and has branched out significantly from there.

Anyway, about two years ago, Tokidoki had its own sub-forum on The Purse Forum (which is worthy of its own fatwa), but we were treated like ugly redheaded stepchildren compared to the big time groups like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Hermes, etc. A group of us were sick of the 2nd class citizen treatment so we split off and formed our own forum under the tenets of freedom, liberty and justice for all (unfortunately we couldn't dress up like American Indians and throw tea in the harbor but we would have if we weren't virtual). Of course, as membership on the forum grew, we did have to put some rules in place.

The forum has a Buy/Sell/Trade section where people can post items (mostly handbags) that they are selling, or ask for specific patterns/styles that they are seeking. Due to an issue with scammers, we require that members have at least 50 posts before they can post bags for sale. This is posted clearly all over the regulations, the site itself, there's even a locked, stickied thread topic that reads "DO NOT START NEW THREADS UNLESS YOU HAVE 50 POSTS!" But, of course, there are idiots that don't bother to read the regulations or are totally out of it and just post shit willy nilly. Then I have to step in and delete their thread and notify them of their breach. The worst part is that I have to be POLITE to them because I'm a mod, I can't just say "You idiot. It's called reading; I suggest you check it out!"

There's this one user who keeps fucking up--she posted the same for sale thread twice, but she only has 4 posts. I keep finding that she's posted random shit in the wrong thread and it's pissing me off. She even responded to my (polite) PM with "oops, sorry! I didn't know how things worked around here! :)" Of course you didn't, you twit, because you didn't bother to learn!

Fatwa on online idiots. I love being a moderator because I do get quite a kick from coming in from on high, but it still chaps my ass when I run into stupid people.

Dude, Take A Hint

This is another gym-related entry, but it’s considerably less light-hearted and sarcastic than my last one. When I signed up for the gym, my dad (who was already a member) had me meet with one of the marketing guys, a Congolese guy named Jean Paul. He was nice, and friendly, and I enjoyed chatting with him while I was signing up. Since I do attempt to be friendly on occasion, I always said hi to him when I showed up and sometimes he would come and chat with me while I was on the elliptical. I actually hate being talked to at the gym, because I'm trying to concentrate on working on, but this guy was unstoppable! And, he was very friendly so it was hard to just ignore or shut him down.

Unfortunately, his chatting turned into pressuring me for a date. He keeps asking if I will go for drinks with him or to dinner. I told him that I wouldn't go to dinner with him, that I wasn't available and that I just wasn't going out. He then started texting me on my phone, since he had the number in his files. I never responded. I take training sessions at the gym from another trainer (see below post about him) so when I am with my trainer, Jean Paul doesnt' come and bother me. I also told my trainer that I have a boyfriend (which I don't but, he doesn't need to know that) in the hopes that it would get back to Jean Paul and that he would leave me alone. The situation is very delicate for me because I don't want to get this guy fired since he has all our personal information from the sign up sheet and, let's face it, there is a higher risk of crime (including retribution-related) in South Africa.

Anyway, I was spared his advances for a week, but last Friday I was leaving and he asked me, "Hey what happened last Friday night, I thought we were going out for drinks!" I told him that I never committed to anything and that I really didn't know what he was talking about. I also told him that it wasn't possible for me to stay out late and that I have a boyfriend. I'm trying to let him bow out gracefully but apparently he is just gunning for public rejection.

I spoke to my trainer about it yesterday and he told me that I should just ignore Jean Paul because he thinks he is a charmer. There are other women whom he is also asking out on dates all the time. What the fuck? This guy is a total creep and I shouldn't have to be subjected to this bullshit. Women can't fucking get it right, ever. Either you're a sourface who should smile (which is an entirely other fatwa post, old men, stop telling me to smile! It's my choice to frown and I wasn't put on this earth to make YOUR day better!) or you're "leading men on" by being too friendly! I'm so pissed right now I can't even think. I think it is inappropriate and disgusting to hit on women at your place of work. Even creepier, this guy knows my Dad!

Now that I'm really fired up, I'm just going to be very straight with him and say, "Look, I'm not interested in dinner, drinks, or whatever. I'm uncomfortable with your pressuring me for this and I think it's inappropriate that you are trying to ask out women at your place of work. If you don't stop harassing me, I'm going to talk to your manager."

And, if he still won't leave me alone, I'm going to voodoo the fucking shit out of him and he won't know what hit him. And probably go all krav maga on his ass.

Ginger and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I am calling fatwa on all of yesterday—hear me, o readers, Monday, July 20, 2009 was a really crappy day. First of all, I had to re-do my class schedule about eight times. Information on what classes to take is (no surprise here!) difficult to find on the T-Bird Registrar’s website and is poorly organized to boot. I then discovered that I had the class codes wrong for two classes, which resulted in more organization. I thought that I had everything figured out neatly until Panos kindly wrote me to let me know that I still had the wrong class code for Ops Management, and that it was only offered in the 2nd module, which means that now I have 4 classes in the 1st module and SEVEN, yes, that’s right, SEVEN in the second. Basically if I want to take Business Presentation, I’ll have that many classes. This is unacceptable. Additionally, there are about 150 people who need to take Ops Management and there is only one section. How about that? Sometimes I really hate this school and want to make a big, fat pile of money and drop out. I emailed Kay Keck and Paula Friesen about this; fat chance they’ll do anything, as per usual.

I then went to the gym, where my trainer proceeded to tell me that I used to be fat (again) and that I had many parts of my body that were “flabby.” Fuck you, man, seriously. Telling people that they are fat is not motivating, it is insulting and in fact, puts you into a shame spiral of depression that makes you considerably less likely to want to do anything except curl up on the couch with a pie and eat the whole thing. I told him to his face that he should 1) shut the fuck up and stop calling people fat and 2) that he had body dysmorphic disorder that he projected onto others.

Then, a little bit later, he asked me, “what’s that thing on your nose?” You know what that thing is on my nose? It’s a giant fucking zit. Thank you, Lindwell, for pointing out the huge, enormous, erupting and red zit on my nose. This thing is epic. It’s the Mt. Everest of zits. It may be the unholy union of two zits, in fact, making up for the fact that I haven’t had one in almost a year. This thing is like the One Ring of zits—one zit to rule them all and in the darkness bind them. I look like fucking Rudolph the Red Nosed fat, flabby reindeer. This day just keeps getting better! I was so annoyed at him that I started responding very loudly. I think my monologue went something like this:

“Oh, what is that thing on my nose? The giant, angry looking, red bump? I’ll tell you what it is, it’s a zit! Thank you so much for pointing it out to me, up until this very moment, I had no idea an enormous pimple was erupting on my nose! Excuse me, everyone! [At this point I start practically yelling at everyone in the gym] Lindwell has a very important announcement for everyone, he would like to you all to know that I have a giant zit on my nose and that it’s obvious! Next time, I’ll make sure to circle it and put an arrow so you don’t miss it!”

Was I being a brat? Yes. Was I still bitter about being called fat/flabby? Yes. Serves him right.

Oh, and then later, I realized that I lost one of my Tokidoki earrings, which were one of my favorites... I lost the Sandy so now I just have a sad Bastardino earring that's lonely.

China Continues to Plague Me - Doesn't it Know We're on a Break??

The fact that the Johannesburg offices of the Bank of China are just one floor up from me is cause for endless amusement. Several times a week I am reminded of all the wonderful cultural differences between mainland Chinese and myself. So far there's been the guy who smokes in the stairwell and pretended not to hear me berating him in Chinese and pointing out the clearly marked "No Smoking" sign, the rude guy in the elevator who refused to make space for me (I pushed his shoulder a little) and the staring woman also in the elevator (I guess she must have been playing a variant of Beijing Subway). Today at Woolie's however, I encountered a particularly insidious Bank of China employee: the close stander.

I was waiting in the long line at Woolie's when I felt something brushing up against my back. I turned around to see a short Chinese woman holding a package of pre-cut butternut squash, which was what had been touching my back. I gave her a dirty look and scooted up in the line. Damn if that bitch didn't scoot up too, again touching me! Creepy! I turned sideways and pressed against the package with my arm and she didn't even move it! How odd! This continued as I moved up in line, but I started to be amused because I wanted to see how far I could "push" (literally) things. It got to the point where I actually pressed hard enough on the package that it caused her to take a step back, which I thought was quite a win. I would wait for her to move up on me, then start exercising a very slow push outward with my elbow. What a dolt.

Cable Theft of a New Variety

On Tuesday night the Cedar Lakes housing development experienced a blackout in the evening for about 4.5 hours. Only the development was affected and not surrounding areas. The suspected reason was cable theft, which is a huge problem here. This isn't cable theft in that your sketchy downstairs neighbors have hacked into your box to get free Skinimax, but rather theft of electrical cables that can be sold due to the copper content. The main issue that I have with this is that the traffic light in front of the Alpha Gate entrance is also tied to the development's power grid, so the traffic light was out, which caused a huge backup all the way to Witkoppen road, which made our commute about 20 minutes longer. Then, when we got back to the house, we realized we didn't have a key to get in, as we rely on the garage door opener. No power = no garage door opening. We then had to get our landlord to come and drop off keys for us while we ate at Spur next door (Spur is what would happen if being totally un-PC came back into style and someone started a TGI-Friday's esque place but with American Indian theme). We got back into the house around 9:15pm but the power still wasn't on. I was in the midst of boiling water for hot water bottles when it finally kicked on, which means that the oven clock is all off and the pool timer is messed up as well.

So, thanks a lot, cable thieves, for messing up everyone's Tuesday night!

Rise and Shine out my Ass

So my dad wakes me up every morning at 5:40am, which we have discussed several times already. Usually he just knocks on my door and says "time to get up!" but this morning he added a particularly insidious and irritating phrase that never fails to piss me off, "rise and shine!" Everyone knows I am not a morning person, but the usage of this phrase makes me feel as if I am being conscripted into someone else's sunshine, puppies and rainbows world of cheerful mornings filled with delightful warm breakfasts and leisurely paper reading. I feel as though I am being forced to conform with someone else's expectation of my morning demeanor. I have a similar problem with Caroline singing in the morning. I can hear it in my room and it is so terribly jolly that it has the opposite effect, plunging me into the foulest and most unpleasant mood imaginable. Caroline has a gorgeous, rich voice, and I absolutely look forward to hearing her sing with Global Sounds this fall, I just don't want to hear it when I wake up, thanks! Same goes for my dad: I think he's trying to put the best spin on a crappy situation (he doesn't like being up at 5:30am either) but seriously, dad, just knock and say "get up." The abruptness fits the shittiness of the situation.

Checkers Hyper Belongs in the 10th Circle of Hell Along With Carrefour Zhongguancuan

Some of you may recall the horrible experience that myself and others on the China trip had with the Carrefour market near the (evil) FX Hotel (also worthy of a declarative fatwa) in Beijing. Well, I have the South African equivalent right next door to my office: Checkers HYPER! Checkers is a supermarket that is in the Sandton City Mall, which is adjacent to Nelson Mandela Square. Checkers HYPER is kind of like a Wal-Mart Supercenter with food items and home goods items available for purchase. The store is messy, chaotic and lacks any comprehensive system of organization. Also typical to SA, the staff are somewhat indifferent and appear confused when you ask them for help (as if I have DARED to query them as to the location of a specific product in their store. How rude!).

I had to go in there on Tuesday because I needed to get a hot water bottle. It's just too damn cold here, so I have taken to using a hot water bottle when sitting and watching TV and then refilling and taking one to bed. Ahhh, bliss! But, first I had to acquire one. In news that may not shock you, there wasn't one section for hot water bottles, they had displays scattered about the store with various fancy ones. They had two different variations on fancy hot water bottles inside stuffed animals as well as some inside embroidered fleece covers. All I wanted was just a normal, basic rubber hot water bottle, but they didn't have it. I asked a staff member, and she said they didn't have it either, so I picked out one with a really tacky hot pink fleece cover with an embroidered fairy on it. So ugly! Of course, on the way to the checkout I found some standard, non covered bottles, but they were made of a cheap plastic similar to jelly shoes.

I waited in the line for a long time, and then the cashier closed the checkout before I got to the front so I had to go wait in ANOTHER line. This made me late for the gym, so I ended up not having time to go. I blame you, Checkers HYPER, for my lack of stomach definition!

Woolworth's Pressed Clemengold Juice Tastes Like the Sweat Dripping off Satan's Choad

In South Africa we have a Marks & Spencer's rip-off called Woolworth's. This Woolworth's is not to be confused with the nickel and dime store in the US, as it aspires to provide both trendy department store offerings as well as quality food products with an emphasis on a lot of private label Trader Joe's type stuff featuring organic and locally sourced ingredients. Since there is a Woolie's in Nelson Mandela Square, where I work, I often end up going over there during my lunch break to pick up various ingredients my dad requests. This past Tuesday I was tasked with getting some organic orange juice. The Super Spar next door to our housing development usually offers freshly squeezed OJ that is quite good, but they only had tiny bottles this weekend and we ran out. So, off I went to Woolie's during lunch.

I arrived only to find that they were completely out of organic OJ. Jess, I think our new drop out of business school idea is supply chain consulting in South Africa. Almost every super market here has the crappiest supply chain management ever--if something is in stock, stock up because it likely won't be there next week. Instead of getting the standard Woolie's OJ, which is from concentrate and thus grosstastic, I decided to get the Pressed Clemengold Juice, which I assumed was pressed juice from clementines. It was clearly fresh, pulpy (we like it with mit fruitfleisch) and was a beautiful deep orange color.

My dad gives me some for breakfast this morning and I'm sad to report it was LIES! All lies! This stuff tastes like ground up vegetables. It's TERRIBLE. There's no hint of citrus or anything remotely orange-y at all. It tastes like carrot juice made from old dehydrated carrots with some dusty potatoes and a bit of rotten beet thrown in. It's foul and I hate it. I'm never getting this crap again, in fact, I want my whole ZAR21 back (about $3)! Rip off, I say!

Guess this means I'll have to brave the dreaded Checker's Hyper to get their freshly squeezed OJ. Ugh. Checker's Hyper deserves its own entry.